{"id":113068,"date":"2023-04-04T16:21:27","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T23:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/?p=113068"},"modified":"2023-04-04T16:53:48","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T23:53:48","slug":"la-county-to-pursue-incentives-to-hire-mental-health-practitioners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2023\/04\/04\/la-county-to-pursue-incentives-to-hire-mental-health-practitioners\/","title":{"rendered":"LA County to pursue incentives to hire mental health practitioners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/alzheimer-amnesia-mental-health-concept-brain.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-110878\" src=\"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/alzheimer-amnesia-mental-health-concept-brain.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"996\" height=\"664\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/alzheimer-amnesia-mental-health-concept-brain.jpg 996w, https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/alzheimer-amnesia-mental-health-concept-brain-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/alzheimer-amnesia-mental-health-concept-brain-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 996px) 100vw, 996px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With the county struggling to hire mental-health practitioners to serve as alternative responders to calls that would otherwise be answered by armed law enforcement, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday instructed its staff to offer a wide range of incentives in hopes of attracting more job applicants.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;L.A. County has been working for the past few years to create a system where someone experiencing a mental health crisis gets the response they need when and where they need it,&#8221; board Chair <strong>Janice Hahn<\/strong> said. &#8220;Now we find ourselves in a situation where we have the infrastructure and funds in place, but we are having a hard time filling these mental health worker positions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are impactful, life-changing jobs, but they are also difficult jobs, and we are competing with clinic positions and teleworking,&#8221; Hahn continued.<\/p>\n<p>Hahn and Supervisor <strong>Kathryn Barger<\/strong> introduced<a href=\"https:\/\/file.lacounty.gov\/SDSInter\/bos\/supdocs\/179260.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> the motion<\/a> that was approved by the board Tuesday, April 4, instructing\u00a0\u00a0the director of Mental Health, CEO and director of Personnel to establish a pilot program to incentivize both the hiring and retaining field-based mental-health workers. Those workers serve on various alternative-response programs, including Psychiatric Mobile Response Teams, Mobile Crisis Outreach Teams, Mental Evaluation Teams, School Threat Assessment Response Team, and similar crucial service units.<\/p>\n<p>The motion noted that the county &#8220;has had a very difficult time filling the roles for the mobile crisis teams,&#8221; despite some hiring incentives already in place, such as relaxed background checks, bonuses for field-based positions and a student loan-forgiveness program.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/file.lacounty.gov\/SDSInter\/bos\/supdocs\/179260.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The motion approved Tuesday<\/a> calls on county officials consider additional incentives such as signing bonuses, extending and increasing existing bonuses, offering shift differential pay, a sabbatical program, more flexible schedules for field workers and stipends for students interested in psych technician certificates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the county struggling to hire mental-health practitioners to serve as alternative responders to calls that would otherwise be answered by armed law enforcement, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday instructed its staff to offer a wide range of incentives in hopes of attracting more job applicants. &#8220;L.A. County has been working for the past few [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1499,1496],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113069,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113068\/revisions\/113069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}